It’s been a weird year for the film industry, and that’s almost certainly going to yield us a strange Academy Awards. On March 27, Regina Hall, Wanda Sykes, and Amy Schumer will host a show filled with controversies both geopolitical and of its own making. There are also some majorly positive storylines, including a more diverse group of nominees than usual, the potential for Kristen Stewart and Ariana DeBose to make history, and a rumored performance that could be must-see TV.
Here’s what you should be paying attention to ahead of the 94th Academy Awards.
Academy Award ratings dropped by over 50 percent in 2021, and the show’s producers are combatting that with a series of pretty transparent grabs at a younger demographic.
DJ Khaled will present at the show, along with a true potpourri of famous people including Tony Hawk and Shaun White (sports!), Halle Bailey (jumping into the movie game next year with The Color Purple and The Little Mermaid), credit card commercial superstar Jennifer Garner, and John Travolta. There are also plenty of younger film stars who seem like more natural fits, including Daniel Kaluuya, Simu Liu, Stephanie Beatriz, and Lupita Nyong’o.
The organizers have also made the decision to not show eight of the 23 categories live, instead filming them earlier and splicing them into the broadcast. This idea has been floated in years past, and usually met with sharp criticism from those in the film industry itself. The goal here, per Deadline, is to keep the show at three hours, although it’s hard to imagine there are that many people out for whom an extra 30-45 minutes is a total dealbreaker.
And to cap it all off, the Oscars have gone for reality show style fan votes, with two categories–Oscars Fan Favorite and Oscars Cheer Moment–that folks at home have voted for online. A few of those who participated will receive prize packages and the movies that win will be highlighted during the ceremony. Fans of Cinderela or a little-seen Johnny Depp movie called Minamata rejoice, you may get your moment in the sun.
As the awards season has rolled on, nearly every major show has taken time to acknowledge the war in Ukraine and show solidarity to its people. The Independent Spirit Awards gave a collective middle finger to Vladimir Putin; stars like Hannah Waddingham and Billie Crystal spoke out at the Critics Choice Awards; Brian Cox gave a characteristically powerful speech at the SAG Awards about Russian actors and filmmakers who fear reprisal if they speak against the invasion.
It’s unclear if or how the Academy Awards will broach the topic, but predictably, it’s been a hot issue ahead of the big day. Co-host Amy Schumer said she pitched the show’s producers on having Ukrainian President (and former actor) Volodymyr Zelensky virtually attend the show, but indicated that ultimately she does not have final call.
It’s not an easy thing to bring up at what is meant to be a celebratory evening, but it would be quite disappointing to see the 2022 Oscars skirt the situation entirely.
There’s not a ton of consensus about who will take home the high profile awards this year, butCODA, Sian Heder’s film about the hearing daughter of a deaf family, has the most momentum. Gold Derby gives it the strongest Best Picture odds, and it has picked up major wins at Oscar bellwethers like the SAG and PGA Awards.
But a CODA win would probably come with backlash: It’s been heralded for its representation of the deaf community, but it’s also been criticized by both film writers and the deaf for its depiction of how hearing-impaired and CODA (children of deaf adults) live. And its feel-good sentimentality has also generated comparisons to past, much-derided Oscar winners like Green Book and Crash.
If CODA does not end up with Best Picture, the next most likely winners seem to be The Power of the Dog or Belfast, which received 12 and seven nominations, respectively.
It seems not an Academy Awards show goes by without Hollywood’s foremost body managing to put its foot in its mouth. This year, the primary controversy hinged around Rachel Zegler, who plays Maria in the new West Side Story adaptation that netted seven nominations, including Best Picture.
Zegler revealed via her Instagram on Sunday that she had not been invited to the Oscars, despite playing a lead role in one of the year’s most visible nominees. “I hope some last minute miracle occurs and I can celebrate our film in person but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes, I guess,” she wrote.
That led to a significant outpouring of support for Zegler–and anger at the Oscars, too. And it seems like things may end up working out, as The Hollywood Reporter noted that Zegler has now been asked to be a presenter at the show.
As of now, it’s unclear if Zegler will make it since she’s currently shooting a film in London, but hopefully the talented young actor will get the moment that she…should have simply been given in the first place.
As noted by the BBC, the Academy Awards have been better about recognizing the great LGBTQ+ centric films of the 21st century (Moonlight, Brokeback Mountain, The Favourite), but the same can’t be said for queer actors themselves. In the history of the Oscars, only a small number of actors, including Jodie Foster and Tilda Swinton have taken home the awards, and none have done it since publicly coming out.
That could change this year, with Kristen Stewart up for Best Actress for Spencer and Ariana DeBose up for Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story. Stewart is bisexual, while DeBose is queer. This is the first time two publicly LGBTQ+ actors have been nominated in the same year, and either (or both) winning (Gold Derby has DeBose as the favorite, while Stewart clocks in at third), would be historic.
It’s been a while since the Academy Awards have had a show-stopping performance, but that could change in a big way this year. Per reporting in Variety, Beyoncé is in talks to play during the Oscars, where she would be broadcast live.
She’d be performing her Best Original Song nominee “Be Alive” from King Richard and, fittingly, would reportedly be doing so from the Compton tennis courts where the Williams sisters learned the game from their father.
Beyoncé is no stranger to Oscar performances: she sang a powerful medley in 2005 including “Vois Sur Ton Chemin” in French and “Learn to be Lonely” from Phantom of the Opera. She also participated in a Dreamgirls performance with co-star Jennifer Hudson, and as part of a Baz Luhrmann-recruited ensemble in 2009.
If this “Be Alive” show comes together as it has been rumored, it could be her crowning Oscars moment—that is, until she eventually wins one of her own.
